Machinarium Maker Offers Amnesty To The 85% Of People Who Pirated Their Game

The people who made the beautiful adventure game Machinarium estimate that only about 5 to 15 per cent of the people who played their game actually paid for it. They don't seem too pissed. In fact, they're offering those thieves a sweet deal.

Amanita Design is now selling Machinarium for the paltry sum of $US5 to anyone and everyone who'd like to pay for things that people spend time and money developing. That includes the game's soundtrack and a chance to right one's wrongs. A bargain compared to the original price of $US20 that most people opted not to pay.

The Machinarium folks are also throwing in a song, "Pirate Amnesty", to commemorate the occasion, free of charge. You can grab Machinarium on the cheap for Windows PCs, Mac or Linux right now if you want.

My thoughts exactly. 5 to 15 percent is a serious disgrace. Anyone who sees this and thinks it's funny should consider how funny it will be when great independent games can't be made any more thanks to those like yourself. Errrrgh...

These numbers... Call me a cynic, but I sometimes think that these developers do a press release with some arbitrary large percent of piracy to go along with their deals and get some sympathy purchases (not to mention news - anything with the word pirate will draw people's eyes).

It's likely. Putting aside how they get those numbers, 79.4815% of pirates wouldn't pay for a game even if it was impossible to pirate. Since they were never going to buy the game they don't count as customers in the first place so the developer doesn't lose any money.

The indie game piracy press releases are sounding more like they're just using sympathy as a marketing strategy.

If they had put even any effort into protected their product from piracy they might of earned, oh i don't know, 30 percent?
Though I do feel sorry for the guys, once my papal balance goes up I will buy this game.

Wow I hope those numbers are exaggerated as I really believe that they deserve to be paid for such a great game.
I happily own 2 copies of the game, bought one on release and the collectors edition when I saw it at the EB sale :D
The soundtrack alone is worth the measly $5US!

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